Death by consumers —

Realizing people don’t want “business tablets,” Cisco kills the Cius

Businesses don't buy tablets, people buy tablets.

In a move that should surprise approximately no one, Cisco has decided to end development on the Cisco Cius tablet. Actually, the move may be surprising to those of you who never realized that Cisco built a tablet at all.

Trying to ride the wave of tablet popularity, Cisco released the Cius a year ago with a heavily customized version of Android, focusing on the security, collaboration, and videoconferencing needs of businesses. A business-focused app store, AppHQ, was unveiled along with the option for businesses to host their own private app stores. But it's all pretty much over now, as Cisco said yesterday that it will "no longer invest in the Cisco Cius tablet form factor," continuing to offer the device only "in a limited fashion to customers with specific needs or use cases."

Cius wasn't killed by the market-leading iPad and Kindle Fire; it was killed by consumers. While work laptops and desktops are still primarily provisioned to employees by corporate IT shops, mobile devices follow the opposite path, being brought into work environments by employees. Smartphones shifted from a business-driven model dependent on the BlackBerry to a consumer-driven one focused on the iPhone and Android devices, but tablets have never been a business-first device (with the exception of some Windows tablets deployed for industry-specific use cases).

Cisco tried to force its own model onto the tablet market, but Senior Vice President OJ Winge wrote in the Cisco blog that it ultimately became clear that "employees are bringing their preferences to work and BYOD ('Bring Your Own Device' to work) is the new norm." Instead of developing its own walled garden, Cisco will focus on building its collaboration products like Jabber and WebEx for a wide variety of operating systems and devices.

You can't really blame Cisco for failing in the tablet market, since pretty much everyone else has, too. Cius had a lower profile than the HP TouchPad and BlackBerry PlayBook, and thus its failure is less embarrassing and damaging to the overall health of the company. Moreover, Cisco does have successful collaboration products for businesses, and they're already available on the major mobile platforms. Cisco may have a bright future in developing business services for tablet users—it just won't be the one making the hardware.

Promoted Comments

tablets have never been a business-first device (with the exception of some Windows tablets deployed for industry-specific use cases

This hits the nail square on the head. There are a few industry-specific cases where I suspect company-provided and -configured tablets will be the norm (doctors making their rounds in a hospital is one that comes immediately to mind). But those markets aren't going to be big enough to support dedicated hardware or customized OS versions. They'll likely be served by generic Windows 8 tablets locked down with policies, the way many corporate PCs have been for years.

But man can I watch some netflix and surf the web on it... I still find the platform quite restrictive for general use - it is great for my email, calendars, and netflix and websites... It sits on the coffee table most of the time..

It has to. It won't fit in the pocket of your trendy skinny jeans. The meme lives, ewelch. It effing LIVES!muhahahahahahaahha

Secondly, I'd say that from what I'm reading so far, Windows 8 is going to fail in the tablet race simply because it's trying to shoehorn a desktop experience into a tablet, and the confusing rules about what parts will run on what pieces of hardware and what is restricted and what is not.

I would tend to disagree.. Everyone and their dog is trying to pin the success or failure of Win8 on getting desktop apps onto the tablet, while MS is doing it's best to a) only bring metro apps down to the tablet b) kill off the desktop crap that has had a lifeline since windows 95.

My expectation is that WinRT (tablet) will do much better over the long run than Win8 (tablet), because the desktop just isn't going to work like that.

Maybe cisco can spend the money on fixing up webex.Most amusing thing is the poor audio quality on a lot of ciscos own webcasts/talks done via webex.Some of them make skype seem like ultra high quality audio.

Full disclosure: I work for a large Cisco partner (a global, Tier 1 Service Provider), and I actually specialize in Cisco/Polycom videoconferencing and collaboration technologies.

deet wrote:

If the other tablets hadn't happened, this would be languishing in a lot of boardrooms with similarly-disused Cisco telecon^H^H^HPresence™ suites as an omgAwesome portable videoconferencing unit.

I don't know what Cisco Telepresence rooms you're talking about, but virtually all of my customers have TP room utilization at 75% or higher. I've been selling this stuff for just under 6 years now, and all of my customer engagements have been fantastically successful, and this was even before you could communicate with TP outside of your enterprise. Now with the global TP Exchange community, plus the capabilities to do Enterprise B2B, there is almost no limit in who you can talk to.

In some cases, people come in early and stay late to use Telepresence to communicate.

I have two of the smaller, personal type Telepresence units on my desk, and I use them more than I do my phone.....which is actually now one of the smallest Cisco video phones....

In fact, I use my phone as little as possible, since at least one of the other people on my conference calls has video, those that can take the call as video and bridge in the audio participants. But even that is going away as we roll out the technology internally and deploy it to my customers.

deet wrote:

But of course, nobody wants to spend ten grand on videoconferencing anymore, because there's no need to.

No need to what? Control the experience? Integrate seamlessly with other collaboration technologies (and I'm talking not just Cisco there)

tablets have never been a business-first device (with the exception of some Windows tablets deployed for industry-specific use cases

This hits the nail square on the head. There are a few industry-specific cases where I suspect company-provided and -configured tablets will be the norm (doctors making their rounds in a hospital is one that comes immediately to mind). But those markets aren't going to be big enough to support dedicated hardware or customized OS versions. They'll likely be served by generic Windows 8 tablets locked down with policies, the way many corporate PCs have been for years.

Doctors and hospitals are already rolling out iPads on a large scale.

Apple is going to refine their corporate tablet management software, and that will be it. It's game over already. Win 8 will be too little, too late, and that's assuming it even works which is questionable. The attempt to be both a desktop OS and a tablet OS has "doomed to fail" written all over it.

If you've been following the industry this is no surprise. Cisco keeps trying things outside its core competency, and they keep failing. Be it net PCs, IP phones (remember the "iPhone"?), et cetera.

Cisco is the de facto standard for networking equipment. They kick ass in that area. Other things, not so much. Ok they bought some good stuff like WebEx. I see them doing well in corporate services some day.

Their best tablet strategy at the moment would be to create a large, kick-ass development team for iOS. So that Cisco has the best iOS apps.

But man can I watch some netflix and surf the web on it... I still find the platform quite restrictive for general use - it is great for my email, calendars, and netflix and websites... It sits on the coffee table most of the time..

That's YOU. Just yesterday a very powerful HTML editor was released for the iPad. Diet Coda (named for its equivalent desktop HTML editor). There are plenty of other applications out there that real work is being done on tablets. Sure, not as much as can be done with a keyboard, mouse and desktop computer. But it was long ago when it was time to retire that old meme.

Give me a break... A mobile laptop - 11-13in with a multi monitor setup is always going to be better... I can work on my 30in screen, and then take my work with me on my device that is not much bigger than an iPad... Dont get me wrong I think they are great devices... But I am not creating proposals on the thing, nor am I working on my budget sheets with it...

I am sure people are doing real work on them... but are they actually being more productive? Or just trendy....

There are more tablets than ipad out there. The Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet range seems designed specifically to fit into the same market as their Thinkpad laptops.

I'm not so sure it's game over. The Kindle Fire showed that the iPad has some weaknesses, as long as you get the services model and pricing right.

There certainly is a need for some business tablets, and Win8 should pick up a chunk of that market. But beyond that, is the draw of legacy apps strong enough to offset the likely high prices of iPad+ quality devices without the economy of scale of Apple's huge supply chain? Where are MS going to get the online services to compete with Amazon and Apple... Zune and the store on Windows Phone have not been a huge success in the mobile space.

Overall I will be surprised if the Win8 tablets sell in More than moderate numbers...

Give me a break... A mobile laptop - 11-13in with a multi monitor setup is always going to be better... I can work on my 30in screen, and then take my work with me on my device that is not much bigger than an iPad... Dont get me wrong I think they are great devices... But I am not creating proposals on the thing, nor am I working on my budget sheets with it...

I am sure people are doing real work on them... but are they actually being more productive? Or just trendy....

Only if by "not much bigger than an iPad" you mean twice as thick, twice as heavy with about 1/2 the battery life. I don't think the iPad is going to replace small laptops for business use just yet, but there already distinct advantages for some tasks.

tablets have never been a business-first device (with the exception of some Windows tablets deployed for industry-specific use cases

This hits the nail square on the head. There are a few industry-specific cases where I suspect company-provided and -configured tablets will be the norm (doctors making their rounds in a hospital is one that comes immediately to mind). But those markets aren't going to be big enough to support dedicated hardware or customized OS versions. They'll likely be served by generic Windows 8 tablets locked down with policies, the way many corporate PCs have been for years.

This is dead wrong.

The hospital system I work for has over 14,000 iOS devices accessing corporate resources, a few hundred Android, and no Windows 8 interest on the horizon. Trust me about healthcare . . . There is no interest in Windows 8. Clinicians want to work with devices on the market, not those that haven't shipped. And, they could care less about having a desktop-like experience next to a touch interface.

apps for business tablets haven't demonstrated their economic benefit. When an economic engine based on a tablet form factor produces more than it costs, sales will skyrocket.

For example, its likely a tablet for hospitals could replace or augment a clipboard when they are as flexible, low-cost as a clip board, or when the information presented and interaction possible on a tablet exceed the 300x cost of a clipboard by that amount. Cisco hasn't demonstrated that.

tablets have never been a business-first device (with the exception of some Windows tablets deployed for industry-specific use cases

This hits the nail square on the head. There are a few industry-specific cases where I suspect company-provided and -configured tablets will be the norm (doctors making their rounds in a hospital is one that comes immediately to mind). But those markets aren't going to be big enough to support dedicated hardware or customized OS versions. They'll likely be served by generic Windows 8 tablets locked down with policies, the way many corporate PCs have been for years.

This is dead wrong.

The hospital system I work for has over 14,000 iOS devices accessing corporate resources, a few hundred Android, and no Windows 8 interest on the horizon. Trust me about healthcare . . . There is no interest in Windows 8. Clinicians want to work with devices on the market, not those that haven't shipped. And, they could care less about having a desktop-like experience next to a touch interface.

This is pure BS. At least the windows 8 part. As a consultant for a major IT outlet working for Healthcare, among many other huge clients, the interest for Windows 8 is pretty significant. Ability to access existing apps on a tablet is very much desired (most dont work on iOS or Android).Also i dont know what HC company you work for, but every single one I have been at (Major Hospital Networks in NYC, Aetna, Metlife, VA Network across several states) I havent seen any iPads or Androids, not counting a few that people themselves have purchased to browse the internet (They dont have access to corpnet).HC also big on compliance, so i dont see unmanageble iOS and Android being deployed systemwide for that reason alone in any short to medium term future, if ever, since both of those are consumer tablet OS that were never designed to be managed in the first place.

This is pure BS. At least the windows 8 part. As a consultant for a major IT outlet working for Healthcare, among many other huge clients, the interest for Windows 8 is pretty significant. Ability to access existing apps on a tablet is very much desired (most dont work on iOS or Android).Also i dont know what HC company you work for, but every single one I have been at (Major Hospital Networks in NYC, Aetna, Metlife, VA Network across several states) I havent seen any iPads or Androids, not counting a few that people themselves have purchased to browse the internet (They dont have access to corpnet).HC also big on compliance, so i dont see unmanageble iOS and Android being deployed systemwide for that reason alone in any short to medium term future, if ever, since both of those are consumer tablet OS that were never designed to be managed in the first place.

Ok, I'll bite . . . I work for Partners HealthCare, the largest hospital system in Massachusetts. I'm the organization's Chief Information Security Officer.

Also, you shouldn't lecture about compliance because you clearly do not know what you are writing about. First, there is nothing in any regulation specific to healthcare that prohibits the use of iOS or Android. The regulations certainly require specific configurations (e.g., inactivity timeouts, encryption) but those are largely achievable through ActiveSync, MDM tools, etc. Second, the fact that you refer to iOS and Android as unmanageable reflects your actual lack of knowledge of how those platforms are practically used in healthcare (and elsewhere).

And, please name those hospitals in NYC . . . I can guarantee you I can find examples of clinical iOS usage at each one.

Finally, clinicians do not care one lick about using a particular application on a tablet/smartphone. They care about accessing information and records . . . no clinician says "I sure wish I could access Meditech or Epic with the exact same interface, but with a touch-based UX!"

...for just under 6 years now, and all of my customer engagements have been fantastically successful, and this was even before you could communicate with TP outside of your enterprise. Now with the global TP Exchange community, plus the capabilities to do Enterprise B2B, there is almost no limit in who you can talk to.

Only so long as they -also- have this kind of equipment. That's a pretty big limit. Which means you still have lots of selling to do, amirite?

Quote:

No need to what? Control the experience? Integrate seamlessly with other collaboration technologies (and I'm talking not just Cisco there)

No, no need to spend a ton of money on this stuff. It can all be done with other products for less money up front and less money in ongoing costs. And I'm not just talking Skype here.

I hear you LOLing, but everything becomes obsolete eventually. I'd suggest you brace yourself for it, but the truth is, you probably won't be around when your customers are grumbling that they have to lug pallets of TP gear down to the auctioneer, for pennies on their billions of dollars.

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These are not enterprise technologies. Not saying Fuzebox or Bluejeans can't scale...because they can....but it really isn't the same thing.

Good enough for cheap beats totally awesome for billions, and frankly, proprietary systems (or those using standards only used by themselves) don't quite add up to totally awesome, except when clever salesmen can convince dim management that it does.

Besides, the very notion of "enterprise technologies" is eroding. Six years ago, there was money for whatever anyone wanted in corporate IT. Six years later, they're still using it only because sticking with what you have is still cheaper than trashing it for something fresh.

But that won't hold for much longer. Soon someone will realize that upgrading TP to {4K, "Retina", other buzzwords ordinary people use to describe "better"} will cost some multiple of dollars more and take some number of months longer than buying a newer, lighter-weight software product that uses whatever high-res, low-power displays and cameras they can get the best deal on, that their on-site guy can install without hiring an expensive integration consultant. Schedule the freight elevator, we have a pile of gray plastic to send to the basement.

Quote:

Huh? 40+ billion dollars a year in revenue is a "deserted playground"? Ye gods man, what industry are you in?

Heh, well I'm certainly not in the business of selling Cisco stuff, so I agree we're seeing the world through different windows. But here's a slice of my own experience.

A huge natural gas company I worked with had a pants-creaming installation. To the hilt. The works. The table alone was worth more than your house. The AV and TP equipment looked like they had gone to a trade show and ordered three of everything.

Used once. Sold at scrap prices after the C-levels had all given up and started using their iPhones and MacBooks without having to come into the office. They kept the triple-redundant projectors so vendors could come in and show Powerpoint cartoons for executive amusement. The TP gear (to say nothing of the Crestron gear) had become useless even if you wanted it; you could get newer and better, even from Cisco and Crestron, for cheaper than what this stuff was worth at fire sale prices. It was 18 months old.

I set up a smaller system for another company I worked with; they were partnering with a UK company with a heavy Cisco investment, and anticipated doing lots of telepresence. Everyone tried it once. One guy really liked it, but soon everyone groaned when he tried to schedule a "TP" meeting, with all the attendant derogatory implications mined richly for their bathroom comedy gold.

So here's what Cisco TP looks like to me:

Few salesmen can figure it out, your ilk obviously excluded. They don't feel like they'll make the sale unless they shake a hand. So all they want is to stop by and borrow a VGA plug.

Engineers and developers use whatever collaboration system works for them in their particular line of work, using tools of their trade, usually at their desks or in labs on the other side of the building from the TP suite. And if they're honest, they have no real interest in looking at each other. They can talk on the phone and work at the same time that way. They only use TP systems when they have to interact with people who insist on using TP systems.

Executives do like to use it, because it makes both ends feel cool that they both have this stuff. If you ask them privately, they'd much rather not have to bother. But this stalemate has emerged in which both sides feel like the other side expects it. And if you can connect to another executive who has it, then you can be assured that they've spent at least as much money on it (though hopefully not that much more!), which communicates some sense of wealth and status. Same reason they have country club memberships, auto-winders for their watches, and multiple Ferraris. Having TP is business eliteness. For similarly vacant legitimate reasons as having a watch-winder.

The rest are MBAs who have no reason to be anywhere else, so why not spend all day in the opulent TP suite? They're excited mostly to see themselves on TV (it's like on 24!), and admire how much they look just like all the stock photography, until they realize they can't pick their noses or make hungover faces when it's all in HD. So they opt to phone in instead... when they can get away with it. It's tricky, because their Ferrari-driving manager keeps calling in from the golf course and saying "goddammit we spent all this money on that TP suite, you should be having no less than 75% of your meetings in there." To which their response is, "the only TP suite I want to visit after last night is down the hall."

So I hate to be the one to tell you, but the world out here is packing up and moving on. Not that Cisco stuff isn't great, but for companies looking into it just now, the webcams on their laptops and Skype are just as much fun, have zero overhead costs, and can be figured out and used effectively by just about anyone. Plus, it all works on the phones and tablets they already have. On the occasion video conferencing and visual collaboration makes sense, they can fire it up right from their laptop, wherever they are, without any existing infrastructure or resource requirements. Cisco and Polycom cannot deliver that.

Cisco is a thick crust upon huge corporate IT, both protecting and protected in a symbiotic relationship, like barnacles, or maybe cervical mucus. The singular benefits it provides are only benefits in an otherwise cumbersome corporate IT infrastructure. So yes, it solves problems quite well, but only for organizations that have dug themselves into those problems in the first place.

In the coming era of lightweight, interoperable, and BYO*, it's all about transferring the exciting features to software. Cisco TP and its species will have the ultimate relevance of UNIVAC.

This is pure BS. At least the windows 8 part. As a consultant for a major IT outlet working for Healthcare, among many other huge clients, the interest for Windows 8 is pretty significant. Ability to access existing apps on a tablet is very much desired (most dont work on iOS or Android).Also i dont know what HC company you work for, but every single one I have been at (Major Hospital Networks in NYC, Aetna, Metlife, VA Network across several states) I havent seen any iPads or Androids, not counting a few that people themselves have purchased to browse the internet (They dont have access to corpnet).HC also big on compliance, so i dont see unmanageble iOS and Android being deployed systemwide for that reason alone in any short to medium term future, if ever, since both of those are consumer tablet OS that were never designed to be managed in the first place.

Doctors and nurses want compliance with the rules set by healthcare administrators to be easier. And they want the best tools for getting reams of paperwork (pulp or digital) out of their way. Neither iOS nor Windows 8 lay exclusive claim to that. The decision is made by non-doctors and non-lawyers, and healthcare practitioners slog on despite, not because of, the technology decisions that get made on the basis of whether or not a device supports GPO and lumbering Windows applications.

The company I work for has serious need for a quality Windows based tablet with a built in bar-code scanner.

We analyze biological samples (mostly blood plasma). When business is good, thousands of samples per day are being tracked through our computer system, and all the physical sample handling is tracked via bar-code scanning.

While some of the software runs on Internet explorer, some doesn't and only runs under Windows. In order to do my job, I have to access one of three PCs that are shared between 50 lab techs. There isn't room to squeeze any more equipment into the lab, and logging on and off the computers takes a chunk of time every day.

We've demoed a couple of Windows tablets, but the performance has been so poor everyone would rather wait for their turn on the PCs than use the tablets (sorry, don't know the manufacturer).

I messed up some of the quote levels, but everyone should be able to figure out who is saying what here.I'm assuming you agreed with everything the CEO of Fuzebox said in Forbes a few weeks ago?

deet wrote:

GasMaskJockey wrote:

...for just under 6 years now, and all of my customer engagements have been fantastically successful, and this was even before you could communicate with TP outside of your enterprise. Now with the global TP Exchange community, plus the capabilities to do Enterprise B2B, there is almost no limit in who you can talk to.

Only so long as they -also- have this kind of equipment. That's a pretty big limit. Which means you still have lots of selling to do, amirite?

Not exactly, at least not anymore.

Quote:

No need to what? Control the experience? Integrate seamlessly with other collaboration technologies (and I'm talking not just Cisco there)No, no need to spend a ton of money on this stuff. It can all be done with other products for less money up front and less money in ongoing costs. And I'm not just talking Skype here.

As long as they're not using (sigh) non-enterprise technologies, the average company can use videoconferencing to talk to any other corporation that has similar gear. The Cisco stuff isn't standards non-compliant like it was when it first came out, you just need to make sure the solutions were architected properly.

And if there was a big enough business case to have to talk to a partner or customer that had "standardized" on something like Skype or something "non-enterprisey", that is where something like BlueJeans comes in.

And with regards to the amount of money to spend to deliver the solution.....Like what? Billions is an obvious exaggeration, and I can tell you for a fact (since I also do the pricing), that unless we're talking immersive rooms, the cost to implement this stuff isn't really all that high. We're talking a couple tens of thousands of dollars, not hundreds of millions.

I hear you LOLing, but everything becomes obsolete eventually. I'd suggest you brace yourself for it, but the truth is, you probably won't be around when your customers are grumbling that they have to lug pallets of TP gear down to the auctioneer, for pennies on their billions of dollars.

Of course everything becomes obsolete eventually, everyone knows that.That is why the products continue to evolve over time, new features get added, form factor X replaces form factor Y and so on and so on.Enterprises replace computers as newer ones come out, just like they update routers, switches, servers, etc. etc. Why should this stuff be any different?

From a product positioning standpoint, the newest of new gear (TX9000) has an almost identical featureset as the line of equipment it is replacing (CTS-3000), and will continue to do so for the next 18-24 months.

Having said that, we already have customers that were early adopters of the technology that are close to the end of their 5 year depreciation cycle that are looking to trade in the old and install the new-new stuff.

deet wrote:

Quote:

These are not enterprise technologies. Not saying Fuzebox or Bluejeans can't scale...because they can....but it really isn't the same thing.

Good enough for cheap beats totally awesome for billions, and frankly, proprietary systems (or those using standards only used by themselves) don't quite add up to totally awesome, except when clever salesmen can convince dim management that it does.

Our salesmen might be dim, but our architects certainly are not, and regardless if we're demonstrating the delivered solution to the CEO or the janitor, I've yet to run into any significant number of people that don't say "Wow, that's come cool technology. How do I use it?"

deet wrote:

Besides, the very notion of "enterprise technologies" is eroding. Six years ago, there was money for whatever anyone wanted in corporate IT. Six years later, they're still using it only because sticking with what you have is still cheaper than trashing it for something fresh.

But that won't hold for much longer. Soon someone will realize that upgrading TP to {4K, "Retina", other buzzwords ordinary people use to describe "better"} will cost some multiple of dollars more and take some number of months longer than buying a newer, lighter-weight software product that uses whatever high-res, low-power displays and cameras they can get the best deal on, that their on-site guy can install without hiring an expensive integration consultant. Schedule the freight elevator, we have a pile of gray plastic to send to the basement.

Again, I'm not sure why or how you had such a bad experience with Cisco/Polycom/market leading VC technology, but I know what we sell, and I know how we sell it.I just had a conversation with someone the other day, and I was actually suggesting a (albeit Cisco) solution that was more of a "BYOD" solution, and was told point blank that something like that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted me to sell him something that comes as a complete kit, that we install for him, that he can support on his own.

In my experience, large corporations don't want everyone just doing whatever the hell they want when it comes to technology purchases. When you do that, you end up with crap from group A not being able to work with the different crap from group B. And if some sort of a Central IT group is responsible for support of some hodgepodge mess of a technology solution, you can bet your behind that they're going to go with something that is a known configuration, is repeatable, that they can easily get support for.

And who do you call when your on-site guy's solution doesn't function as intended and some important meeting (or meetings) don't go as planned.Schedule security, we have a pile of employee to send to the unemployment line......

deet wrote:

Quote:

Huh? 40+ billion dollars a year in revenue is a "deserted playground"? Ye gods man, what industry are you in?

Heh, well I'm certainly not in the business of selling Cisco stuff, so I agree we're seeing the world through different windows. But here's a slice of my own experience.

A huge natural gas company I worked with had a pants-creaming installation. To the hilt. The works. The table alone was worth more than your house. The AV and TP equipment looked like they had gone to a trade show and ordered three of everything.

Used once. Sold at scrap prices after the C-levels had all given up and started using their iPhones and MacBooks without having to come into the office. They kept the triple-redundant projectors so vendors could come in and show Powerpoint cartoons for executive amusement. The TP gear (to say nothing of the Crestron gear) had become useless even if you wanted it; you could get newer and better, even from Cisco and Crestron, for cheaper than what this stuff was worth at fire sale prices. It was 18 months old.

While I have heard this story more times than I can count, I can promise you (because what is the word of an anonymous handle on the internet worth?), that this does not happen at the customers that I have.

deet wrote:

I set up a smaller system for another company I worked with; they were partnering with a UK company with a heavy Cisco investment, and anticipated doing lots of telepresence. Everyone tried it once. One guy really liked it, but soon everyone groaned when he tried to schedule a "TP" meeting, with all the attendant derogatory implications mined richly for their bathroom comedy gold.

Which is a fair criticism. However, one of the things that we have done at our customers, both alone and with Cisco, is set up adoption plans, helped them with internal marketing, etc. etc. When we are done, people are looking forward to using it, people are excited to use it, and after a while, making calls with TP becomes common place. In most of my customers, the preferred way of communicating with geographically distributed groups/teams is through videoconferencing and Telepresence.

deet wrote:

So here's what Cisco TP looks like to me:Few salesmen can figure it out, your ilk obviously excluded. They don't feel like they'll make the sale unless they shake a hand. So all they want is to stop by and borrow a VGA plug.

I will agree with you here, no problem.Telepresence doesn't replace that "press the flesh" in person experience, it just provides an alternative.If you want to go out to dinner with your customer, then this cannot and will not replace that experience.But once you've made that relationship, and you just want to talk to them, this means you don't have to get on a plane every time you want to do it.You just fire up the video call and talk, almost like you're in the same room.

I say this because once you get in there, this is what happens.

deet wrote:

Engineers and developers use whatever collaboration system works for them in their particular line of work, using tools of their trade, usually at their desks or in labs on the other side of the building from the TP suite. And if they're honest, they have no real interest in looking at each other. They can talk on the phone and work at the same time that way. They only use TP systems when they have to interact with people who insist on using TP systems.

If you're talking ONLY about immersive systems, I am somewhat apt to agree with you.But when you give the engineering team a smaller TP system, or you give them desktop units, or you can put the technology on their phones or tablets (iOS/Droid), or you can give them specialized video technology that allows them to really get the video into an assembly line (http://www.librestream.com/products.html), or adding shared whiteboards..........

The engineers like the technology just as much as everyone else, but you need to make sure that you're matching the solution to their use cases. Otherwise, you're right, they're not going to use it. We make it easy to use. That is part of the value.

deet wrote:

Executives do like to use it, because it makes both ends feel cool that they both have this stuff. If you ask them privately, they'd much rather not have to bother. But this stalemate has emerged in which both sides feel like the other side expects it. And if you can connect to another executive who has it, then you can be assured that they've spent at least as much money on it (though hopefully not that much more!), which communicates some sense of wealth and status. Same reason they have country club memberships, auto-winders for their watches, and multiple Ferraris. Having TP is business eliteness. For similarly vacant legitimate reasons as having a watch-winder.

I won't disagree that there is an "eliteness" (ick) to this, to a certain extent, at least maybe a few years ago.And since your executives don't seem to have a liking for this type of tech, I'm not surprised that is what they tell you.Also, if video was organically grown in their environment, or wasn't properly built or architected or deployed correctly, then yes, this is what you will find in your user community.

But when you make it easy for people, you show them how it can save time, save money, reduce time to market for whatever it is you do or sell, and help people collaborate better and more often, then no, I'm going to have to disagree with you. This stuff does work, and when done properly, it works very well.

deet wrote:

The rest are MBAs who have no reason to be anywhere else, so why not spend all day in the opulent TP suite? They're excited mostly to see themselves on TV (it's like on 24!), and admire how much they look just like all the stock photography, until they realize they can't pick their noses or make hungover faces when it's all in HD. So they opt to phone in instead... when they can get away with it. It's tricky, because their Ferrari-driving manager keeps calling in from the golf course and saying "goddammit we spent all this money on that TP suite, you should be having no less than 75% of your meetings in there." To which their response is, "the only TP suite I want to visit after last night is down the hall."

Again, I have to disagree with you here.For my customers, Telepresence is never, ever positioned as a "management toy" or only reserved for VPs and above and "MBA types".Everyone is encouraged to use it, and does.

deet wrote:

So I hate to be the one to tell you, but the world out here is packing up and moving on. Not that Cisco stuff isn't great, but for companies looking into it just now, the webcams on their laptops and Skype are just as much fun, have zero overhead costs, and can be figured out and used effectively by just about anyone. Plus, it all works on the phones and tablets they already have. On the occasion video conferencing and visual collaboration makes sense, they can fire it up right from their laptop, wherever they are, without any existing infrastructure or resource requirements. Cisco and Polycom cannot deliver that.

So if you're making the assumption that video will never become a mission critical application like....oh....lets say......email.....or phones/voice/IPT......or Unified Communications......like IM/Presence/webconferencing.......then you are correct.

I'm not all that familiar with how Skype works, to be honest with you....but when Skype "breaks", who do you call?Is there someone that you can dispatch to fix that?What if you were depending on that Skype call to help you close a deal, and now you can't use it, and that was how the whole thing was going to be done?Do you fall back to the simple phone call and hope that your words alone will have the same impact?

My point here, is that your "free and fun" solutions have a completely different support model inherent in their use.When your Cisco or Polycom stuff breaks (which doesn't happen all that often), you can have a new piece of gear and a guy to install it for you in 4 hours or less.When your Skype or some other tech doesn't function as you expected, what do you do? Who do you call? What is the SLA?

I can put Cisco or Polycom or some other enterprise video vendor's tools and technology on those same laptops and those same tablets and phones, and my customer will know exactly how it is supposed to work, will have the knowledge and understanding of how the solution is built and how to support it, and will be able to articulate to their users what it can and can't do.

With "free" or low cost technologies, how do you suggest you ring someone's mobile phone when they get a call at their desk, while also attempting to bring up a call on 2 or 3 different video devices, depending from what direction the call came in (PSTN audio call vs. URI dialed video call)? How do you suggest that they keep that call on a Wifi network instead of using the Cellular PSTN, but keep it secure while it traverses the internet? How would you propose that we escalate that call from audio back to video once the user gets back to their desk, while also inviting another 3 or 4 people to that call?

deet wrote:

Cisco is a thick crust upon huge corporate IT, both protecting and protected in a symbiotic relationship, like barnacles, or maybe cervical mucus. The singular benefits it provides are only benefits in an otherwise cumbersome corporate IT infrastructure. So yes, it solves problems quite well, but only for organizations that have dug themselves into those problems in the first place.

In the coming era of lightweight, interoperable, and BYO*, it's all about transferring the exciting features to software. Cisco TP and its species will have the ultimate relevance of UNIVAC.

[/quote]

Are you limiting your comments to just Cisco video, or are we talking about Cisco and their entire solution set and value proposition as a whole?

These are not uncomplicated solutions, I can admit that.But the value that the VAR (Value Added Reseller) brings to the table is that we know how to make these things work as they were originally intended.They're not cheap, I think we can all admit that.But when you take the time to know what it is you want, can articulate those wants/needs into use cases, and can find a vendor or partner to help you execute your vision, that is where we come in.We're not designed to cater to "bargain basement" type of IT buying, and we never will be. That is a different market segment with a completely different margin and cost structure.Nothing wrong with that, by the way, but you don't get a whole lot of personalization or customization in that section of market.Those are the guys that you (more often than not) can't call in the middle of the night and get cogent, coherent support.

Cisco, Polycom, and other vendors like them (if we're sticking to video) provide valuable products and services to the market, people use them and like them and are going to continue buying them, in their current form and in whatever they evolve to (and continue to evelove to) in the future.

Then again, if you're just an Anti-Cisco bigot in general (and there are plenty of them out there), then this discussion is kind of a waste, because you simply don't like the name on the badge that comes on the gear, regardless if we're talking about immersive room systems, desktop video, the software on the tablet, or even the routers, switches and wireless access points in the data closets and datacenters.

I stopped reading here.If you think Active Sync is encryption, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about (SSL/TLS doesnt count). Just one example - reading RMS encrypted email is nearly impossible (although Gigatrust now has a module for the iOS) it is still very limited. I know because i have deployed Exchange (backend behind ActiveSync) and AD RMS in numerous places.Until iPads and Android can offer fully encrypted filesystem and system that is manageble remotely via industry standard tools such as AD/Openview/SCCM/Altiris/others, there wont be widespread use.Sure there will be limited usage, but it wont be systemwide.Most of the places (NYU Hospital Netowrk, NorthShore LIJ if you want examples) want Win8 tablets (not RT, full OS which can be fully managed). Management is a bit deal for compliance, of which it seems you know little of.

This is pure BS. At least the windows 8 part. As a consultant for a major IT outlet working for Healthcare, among many other huge clients, the interest for Windows 8 is pretty significant. Ability to access existing apps on a tablet is very much desired (most dont work on iOS or Android).Also i dont know what HC company you work for, but every single one I have been at (Major Hospital Networks in NYC, Aetna, Metlife, VA Network across several states) I havent seen any iPads or Androids, not counting a few that people themselves have purchased to browse the internet (They dont have access to corpnet).HC also big on compliance, so i dont see unmanageble iOS and Android being deployed systemwide for that reason alone in any short to medium term future, if ever, since both of those are consumer tablet OS that were never designed to be managed in the first place.

Doctors and nurses want compliance with the rules set by healthcare administrators to be easier. And they want the best tools for getting reams of paperwork (pulp or digital) out of their way. Neither iOS nor Windows 8 lay exclusive claim to that. The decision is made by non-doctors and non-lawyers, and healthcare practitioners slog on despite, not because of, the technology decisions that get made on the basis of whether or not a device supports GPO and lumbering Windows applications.

I am sure they do, but its not IT who made up all the bullshit administrative including bullshit compliance regulations rules. You can thank US Healthcare system for that, it caters to middle men, not doctors and patients.

Totally agree with you, its funny how many "20 people design shop" armchair commanders here comment about large Enterprise like they know what they are talking about. Probably the same people who blame IT for not allowing them to browse Facebook at work. Hilarious.

People do NOT want a generic tablet with a "business" label on it. This is why the Playbook is failing too. You have to provide business solutions to go along with the tablets. Cisco didn't do that. They couldn't see the need beyond a video-conferencing solution.

Cisco put in the infrastructure to sell business tablets, but in the end, the complete solution was not there.